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The G20, the World Bank’s “Cascade”, and Trump: Going to any Length to “Crowd In” the Private Sector? For several years, there have been efforts to shift the mission of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to one of “crowding in” private investment. Especially since the early 2000s, World Bank critics (including […]

Robin Schmuecker – Heinrich Boell Foundation, Economic Governance & G20 program. On June 12-13, 2017, Germany will host the G20 Finance Ministers and other government and business dignitaries at the “Africa Partnership Conference: ‘Investing in a Common Future’ in Berlin. The outcomes of this Conference will be announced only weeks later at the July 7-8 G20 […]

While media reports largely focussed on trade policy – an area the G20 has never made important decisions on – the real impact of the new US administration has been to severely limit the scope of new initiatives planned by the G20 this year, highlighting major deficiencies in its governance structure.

Corporate lobby groups have created a broad network of influence channels around the G20, with the Business 20 (B20) at its core. At the G20 Sherpa meeting in Frankfurt on 23-24 March the B20 presents its policy recommendations to the governments. Traditionally, the business lobby in the G20 has been pushing for overcoming “overregulation” of […]

In Trump’s inaugural address, he broke sharply with post-war tradition by stating with nationalistic fervor that “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first.” The full extent to which Trump will abandon long-standing alliances and multilateral frameworks is yet […]